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BEFORE THE LITERARY SOCIETIES | 

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ALLEGHENY COLLEGE, 


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BY HON. HENRY BALDWIN. 


PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OP THE SOCIETIES. 


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JOSEPH C. HAYS, PRINTER. X 


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ADDRESS, 

DELIVERED 

BEFORE TIE LITERARY SOCIETIES 


OP 

ALLEGHENY COLLEGE, 


Ms MOfe 


BY IION. HENRY BALDWIN. 


PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE SOCIETIES* 


MEADVILLE: 

JOSEPH C. IIAYS, PRINTER* 



ADDRESS. 


There is perhaps no period in your lives more interesting, 
than at that point when, after finishing a course of education, 
preparatory to the choice of a profession, and entering on the 
active pursuits of life, your minds are alternately expanded with 
high anticipations of success in the sphere in which you intend, 
or are destined, to move, and depressed by the apprehension 
of disappointment, as hope or fear may, for the time, be 
ascendant. You stand on, or near, the line, which will soon 
separate you from the parents or friends, who have nurtured 
you in your infancy, led you through that incipient state of 
learning, that, qualifying you for collegiate study, stores the 
mind with useful, practical knowledge, and enables you to 
assume a station for yourselves, wherein to develope and em- 
ploy the faculties given you by nature, as they have been im- 
proved by culture; or you are about returning to the scenes 
and companions of vour youth, and parting from the cherish- 
ed associations of your riper years, and the kind instructors, 
who have zealously endeavored to teach you the road to use- 
fulness and happiness, by storing your minds with the guides 
of religion and morality, and the principles of science. You 
must soon lose the staff* on which you have rested for support, 
and with the world before you, stand ready to encounter its 
vicissitudes which will attend your course through life, trusting 
to your own efforts when friends and aid may be far away. 

When entering upon a regular course of study, the minds 
of some are full of expectation of a successful career; they 
look to the commencement of a collegiate life, as of a pleas- 
ant journey, to its termination as a state of probation, and 
long for the time when they can set up for themselves, be up 
and doing. Others, when the time arrives, think it comes too 
soon — ;that too much remains to be learned — and feel reluc- 
tant to take what seems a premature, perilous leap into the 
unknown, unexplored scenes of the bustling world. The 
rushing recollections of the past, the forebodings of the fu- 
ture, the alternations of hopes and fears, bearing on one point 
of time, combine to make this an epoch of interest to your- 
selves; especially, when the mind turns from self, to the anx- 


4 


ious parents, friends and instructors, who have thus far con- 
ducted you from step to step, in what they deemed the true 
path to present and future welfare. No one can feel indiffer- 
ent to the sensations which arise in their bosoms, when they 
stand on the shore, to witness your embarcation on a troubled 
sea, whence there may be no return, or a return without joy, 
with shipwrecked prospects, impaired reputation, and with all 
the pains and cost of education productive of no good results, 
or perhaps so thrown away, as to have made the return more 
painful than the absence. 

But if, at the starting point, you arc fearful of taking the 
first step, doubt your capacity for self-dependence, when you 
first view the impediments that obstruct your progress to for- 
tune or fame, reflect on those who have fallen by the way, for 
want of strength to reach the goal, or judgment to ascertain 
the direction by which it was to be found. Reflection will 
summon and bring resolution in aid of your duties. You will 
look to those who have surmounted difficulties more formida- 
ble than you may have to encounter; become stimulated by ex- 
ample, and determined to reach your object. Or should you ea- 
gerly rush upon active life, with the full assurance of success, 
without seeing any impediments, anticipating no adverses; — 
or guarding against contingencies, but confident in your own 
resources, move forward as if you felt conscious of the in- 
fluence of an auspicious star, there are the same inherent 
incentives to action; there are implanted principles, operating 
to the same end, by varied impulses, and different means. 
What they arc, and how they operate, can best be known and 
felt, when you shall have experienced the anxious solicitude 
of a parent, instructor, or guardian, in watching the conduct 
of a child, a pupil, or a ward; you can now only imagine 
what feelings must cluster around the heart in such relations; 
but by supposing them to exist in yourselves, you will easily 
estimate the duties you owe to those who fill such relations 
towards you. 

At your request, and with much pleasure on my part, I am, 
for the occasion placed in a position, which authorises me to 
assume the relation of a friend, and as such to speak to and 
address you, as young men about to become active members 
of the great society of man — as a portion of the rising gener- 
ation, on whom the hopes of the country must ultimately rest, 
and, as I trust, who will contribute to its lasting welfare, no 
small measure of faithful service, guided by talents cultivated 
with care, and exerted with laudable zeal. 


5 


The occasion and place of our meeting is, to me at least, 
one of manifold interest; here I began my course of active 
life, and after near forty years of residence elsewhere, hither 
I return to end it, unless those who can direct in what place 
my duties shall be performed, shall deem fit to order other- 
wise; here I found many friends in early manhood, some yet 
remain, and by the descendants of those who have passed away, 
it does not seem’ to be considered that a mere stranger has 
come among them. Nor are you warranted in looking on 
me as a stranger in interest to the institution, to which you 
have been, or may remain attached, or to those who have re- 
ceived their education within it. To find a flourishing col- 
lege, where but a declining school once existed; to see a seat 
of learning, where, within the memory of some now present, 
the savage roamed for prey; to feel assured that those, who 
have been the means of its resuscitation, will save it from 
further relapse, and that the character of the youth who leave 
it, will greatly tend to the continuance and increase of its 
prosperous condition, is as cheering to mo as to any one who 
hears me. Could I be insensible to these considerations, 
there is another which could not fail to be impressive; by the 
kindness of those to whom the superintendence of the institu- 
tion is entrusted, its highest honors have been awarded to me; 
they were gratefully accepted, and the more cherished by a 
reference to those by whom the award was made. The old 
friends of other days, their descendants, and the members of 
a religious society, whose pious zeal in the cause of learning, 
has not only revived our own college, but in another part of 
the state, has restored more than its ancient splendor to one of 
the oldest literary institutions among us, after successive re- 
trogressions. Such an honor, flowing from those near and 
dear to me, is the more valued as its source is the nearer 
home; and in looking at every thing around me, with a retro- 
spect to the last forty years, I may safely say that could the 
same recollections crowd on your mind, as do on mine, you 
would assuredly be convinced that this occasion and this pres- 
ence are impressed upon me with no ordinary emotions. 

In reminding you of your duties for accomplishing the pur- 
poses of your education, there can be no place more appro- 
priate than this, and, by recurring to the past condition of the 
country around us, in contrast with what it now is, you will 
be reminded of what are the good effects of the enterprise, 
courage and industry of a few men, who redeemed it from its 
savage state. It is only fifty-three years, since thi3 place was 


i 


6 


twenty-five miles in advance of the most western military sta- 
tion in possession of the United States, and one of the soldiers 
who assisted in its construction, the donor of the ground 
where the college stands, is yet among us; and it is less than 
fifty years, since the venerable patriarch of our beautiful val- 
ley, was taken prisoner by the Indians within our present view. 

He yet survives as a worthy pattern of the hardy pioneer, in 
promoting the happiness of all around him in the perilous 
days of other times; in his time he has seen the line between 
civilization and barbarism, extended from the banks of the 
Susquehanna, to the fair and far west beyond the Mississippi, 
how far none can tell* In his time, few Americans resided 
within that broadly expanded territory, now it teems with mil- 
lions, increasing with every passing moment; he has seen it 
a wilderness, now it is almost as a continued garden, with in- 
tervening forests, which are fast disappearing before the in- 
domitable industry of an active population* Let these be sub- 
jects of your steady contemplation; look here, and there, and 
everywhere, through the vast region for a field, wherein you 
may become as useful in the improvement and perfection of 
the great work, which the uneducated pioneers of your coun- 
try have began, and carried beyond expectation, or even im- 
agination, of what could be done. With advantages which 
they had not, imitate their example bv making as good an use 
of the means which you possess, as they did of what was in 
their power, then you will find in the swelling resources of 
your country, abundant room and subjects on which to display 
your talents; apply your knowledge and industry so as to meet 
the highest expectation of all who are interested in your wel- 
fare, or that of our common country. Something can be ef- 
fected by each of you in your respective spheres of action; 
and though it may not be great, your separate productions, ' 
carried into one account with your country, may mako it large- 
ly a debtor to the joint concern. 

You are more numerous than the first settlers on French 
Creek; do as much as they have done for their country, and 
your friends will ask, or can wish, no more. 

The great object of your education, has been to learn you 
howto fulfil your mission, to acquire such knowledge as will 
enable you to do it, and in what manner you can applj it so 
as to produce the desired effect; 'learned as you may be, well 
instructed as you have been, it has been rather in the seclu- 
sion of the college, than on the public theatre on which you 
are about to become actors, as I hope and trust, of celebrity 


7 


fcrld usefulness. With varied talents, and different objects of 
immediate pursuit, your efforts will be directed to one common 
end, act as you will, by means as unconnected as your occu- 
pations, you will yet act upon the same impulse, by the same 
principles of duty to God, man and society, according to the 
course which nature prompts, instruction has taught, or incli- 
nation shaped. It varies with the varied mind, still pointing 
in the same direction, to individual happiness, public useful- 
ness, the approbation of friends, and the accomplishment of 
their hopes. 

How these objects are to be attained, is a subject of serious 
reflection, at every stage of life in which you are placed. To 
those of you who are now closing your general course of 
education, and selecting one more appropriate to some peculiar 
occupation, it is most important to well examine yourselves, 
in order to find out that which is most congenial to your turn 
of mind, the best adapted to unite capacity of attaining what 
is desired, with the inclination to pursue it by the necessary 
means. To those who yet remain to complete such a course 
of education as is useful in all pursuits, it matters less that 
they devote their attention more to one branch than another. 
Till the time for the choice of an occupation arrives, it is better 
to cultivate the mind as a garden capable of producing every 
varied product, by the proper preparation of the ground, in 
which the root is to be planted, or the seed sown. The young 
gardener will soon discover the nature of the soil, its produc- 
tions, with the proper means of adapting it to the growth of 
all those varieties of herb, plant, flower, vegetable and fruit, 
which are suited to his wants, his profit, or pleasure. It is 
time to prepare for some particular culture, when by his own 
self-examination, or by accident, he has fixed on his course of 
husbandry; but in the mean time, every student, from the 
youngest to the oldest, should keep in mind the beautifully 
instructive fable of iEsop, about the husbandman who, on his 
death bed, told his sons, that he had left them a great mass of 
gold buried under ground in his vineyard, but did not remem- 
ber the particular place where it was hidden. The sons turn- 
ed up all the vineyard with their spades; gold indeed they 
found none, but by reason of their stirring and digging the 
mould about the roots of the vines, they had a great vintage 
the year following. Bear it then in remembrance, that your 
duty to the Deity, who has planted a vineyard within you, is 
to cultivate it so as to second his beneficent purpose; that you 
owe it to those who have made you an advancement in life, or 



8 


left you an inheritance in a good education, that you turn it to 
such account as will fill their expectations if alive, or as you 
may be convinced would console them in their last moments, 
if assured that their designs would be accomplished. Re- 
member, too, that as a member of the community in which 
you may be located, you enjoy the benefits of association, of 
social intercourse among those you are to derive your support, 
by whose confidence and assistance your objects can alone be 
effected; who in performing their obligations towards you, 
have a right to demand a concomitant compliance with yours. 
In the circle of society, whether large or small, each one has 
an appropriate station and pursuit, but the interests and wel- 
fare of all are mutually dependent; each aids the other by the 
exchange of the surplus of the one, to supply the wants of 
another; some labor with the body, others with the mind; the 
products of all are for sale, or barter, or subjects of exchange, 
whether for money, for money’s worth, or compensation for 
public service. There is no calling in life, in which man 
must not depend on man, or can be absolved from the impe- 
rious duty of contributing to the common welfare his due pro- 
portion of bodily or mental labor. Nor is this the last or least 
of our obligations; every man owes to himself such a degree 
of self respect, as will keep him in good humor with himself, 
to feel at least self approbation in his conduct to others, so as 
to enjoy that internal repose of mind, which results from the 
consciousnoss that he has endeavored to meet the just requisi- 
tions of society upon the position which he occupies. 

Some of you have fixed upon the immediate object of your 
futuVc occupation; others perhaps are waiting for some, internal 
movement or external occurrence, to direct their choice; let me 
advise you to chooso that, for which you feel the assurance of 
the capacity of attaining distinction and public usefulness, 
by means which will not make it an up hill work, in laboring 
in one direction, while the bend of your mind is in a differ- 
ent course. Take that in which you feel confident of being 
able to mix the most private enjoyment with the highest de- 
gree of public good. Indulge, and freely indulge, the first 
promptings of nascent ambition, to fill to the brim the full 
measure of your position; let your steps be guided by that 
laudable pride, which in reference to yourselves or society, 
springs from the resolution to effect useful ends by worthy 
means. If wealth is your aim, it is sure to follow incustrv, 
honesty, and method in applying the knowledge already ob- 
tained; if you seek distinction in your calling, the same means 


) 

/ 


9 


xvill secure it; or if public approbation is the ruling passion, 
you have only to act well the part assigned you to obtain the 
only popularity worth the possession — that which follows the 
fulfilment of our duties. 

It is the duty of every member of society, to be in some 
way useful to others, to endeavor to add something to the 
common stock, to so mark his path through life, as to leave 
some trace of what he had done for the public good; let his 
position be what it may, whether in a profession, or trade, or 
other employment, every man can do something for himself, 
which benefits the public. Human happiness consists not in 
the acqusition of wealth, honor, fame, or the amount of either; 
the desre of accumulating the former beyond the means of 
rational enjoyment for the present, and wise provision for the 
future, is never gratified; ask the millionaire how much will 
suffice him, he will answer something more; and however 
much it may be, he will never have enough, or enjoy with 
content what he has. Go to the man who lias power over hi3 
fellow man; ask him if he has enough, if he is content with 
that portion which the constitution and laws of the country 
have conferred upon him; few will be found content with the 
share distributed to them; others will have too much, they too 
little, and they will think themselves its safest depository and 
administrator. Go to the man, around whose head some of 
the honors of a state or a nation are gathered; he looks among 
his equals with jealousy, to his superiors with envy, and 
should he reach the highest station, he will find that he who 
is in a great place, has need to borrow other men’s opinion, to 
make himself happy. The thirst for any other fame than 
that which follows useful actions is never sated; that which is 
sought by the arts of empiricism in science, or imposture in 
policy, is felt to be baseless; and conscious of its airy, fleeting 
nature, the possessor seeks to condense the cloud which throws 
a false halo around him, by new arts and practices, to con- 
tinue popular delusion by .eliciting popular applause. 

True fame, which consists in public approbation, flowing 
spontaneously from the free assent, and inward belief of the 
wise and good, that it has been merited by the promotion of the 
interest of the community; as it follows only on meritorious 
conduct, he who enjoys it never desires to add to it on trust, 
but willing that services should precede rewards, he stretches 
his faculties to the snapping point, to perform the first, well 
assured that the latter will sooner or later follow in the wake. 
T he laborer may not receive his hire here, but it is sure to 


10 






come hereafter; and though he may not receive his fame 
among those whom he has served, he may repose in the hope 
of being elsewhere accepted, as a well done, good and faithful 
servant. Let then public usefulness be the great aim of your 
conduct towards man; it will teach and lead you in the path to 
happiness here and hereafter, it will surround you with the 
solid enjoyments of life; the hope of effecting something that 
will better the condition of others, will cheer you in your pro- 
gress from youth through manhood, while the consciousness of 
its accomplishment, will be a pure source of solace in old age. 

You have therefore prepared for the race, over whatever 
ground may be chosen, by or for you; you have now come 
to the place where you see the direction of the course; are 
now at the starting point, with an allotted field before you; 
and though you may not want, you will not be the worse for 
the further advice of a friend, who has had his own row to 
hoe through a rough field, and a chequered life somewhat 
prolonged. Look about you, examine yourself well; von 
know not who or what is to enter into competition with, or 
opposition to you; prepare for success, provide against dan- 
ger; your stock of knowledge is your first dependence, its 
proper quantum and application to the intended object is the 
next. You should look well to the source whence it is to 
be acquired, as well as the means of its acquisition; seek it 
in the fountain, rather than the rivulet; “in nature as viewed 
in her works,” “as the mirror of art,” and not in prospect as 
“from some high turret afar; off,” as is commonly done, 
“whereby we are taken up with generalities.” “Whereas 
we should depend and approach nearer to particulars, and 
more exactly and confidently look into things , that thereby 
there might be made a more true and profitable discovery” — - 
of what is sought, as well as what endangers the pursuit. 
“And this certainly may be averred for truth, that they be 
not the highest instances that give the best and surest infor- 
mation. This is not unaptly expressed in the tale so com- 
mon, of the Philosopher, that while he gazed upward to the 
stars, fell into the water; for if he had looked down, he 
might have seen the stars in the water, but in looking up 
to heaven, he could not see the water in the stars.” “In like 
manner it often comes to pass, that small and mean things 
conduce more to the discovery of great matters, than great 
things to the discovery of small matters; and therefore Aris- 
totle notes well, that the nature of every thing is best seen in 
its smallest portions. For that cause he inquires the nature 


* 


11 

of a commonwealth, first in a family, in the simple congrega- 
tions of society, man and wife, parent and children, master 
and servant, which are in every cottage. So likewise the 
nature of this great City of the world, and the policy thereof, 
must be sought in every first, concordance, and least portions 
of things. So we see that fact of nature, (esteemed one of 
the great mysteries,) of the turning of iron, toucht with a load- 
stone, towards the poles, was found out in needles of iron, not 
in bars of iron . 57 So in Holy Writ, we are taught to look to 
small things as composing the greatest; even the kingdom of 
heaven is compared to a grain of mustard seed, not to an acorn 
or nut, but to the least of grain; but it hath in it the property 
and spirit hastily to get up and spread, and it may not be 
irreverently taken as a lesson in all things to man, to resort 
to means however small or insignificant at first view, in 
performing his obligations. Take those which are best cal- 
culati d, in their known effects and operation, to spring up the 
soonest, grow the fastest, spread the widest, multiply the most, 
and best fructify the field you cultivate, whether by the labors 
of the mind or the body. Look well to the small grains of 
human happiness, the aggregate will make up itself, as the 
old maxim well teaches us, take care of the penny, the pound 
will take care of itself. All great things have small begin- 
nings. Families enlarge to villages — thence grow towns, 
cities, states, nations; would you truly understand the policy 
of swelling them from the one to the other, trace them to the 
germ, the root; would you know the laws of nature, trace 
them back from their most splendid developements, to their 
primary movements, and if you find truth there, “the voice 
of nature will cry it up, though the voice of man should cry 
it down . 77 It^better suits and gratifies the pride of man, to 
rather incline from the path of nature than to follow it, to en- 
deavor rather to ascribe an act, an invention, or discovery, to 
his own genius, than to the law or the light of nature and its 
works; hence it ever has been, yet is, and ever will be, a but 
too common endeavor to substitute in their place, the specula- 
tions of theorists. But “-that which is referred to truth, is 
more than that which is referred to opinion , 77 hence “error 
both proceeded from too great a reverence, and a kind of 
adoration of the mind and understanding of man, by means 
whereof, men have withdrawn too much from the contempla- 
tion of nature and the observations of experience; and have 
tumbled up and down in their own speculations and conceits, 
but of these surpassing opinionators and intellectualists, who 


12 


are notwithstanding taken for the most sublime and divine 
Philosophers, it was justly said, “Men seek truth in their 
own little world, and not the great common world, for they 
disdain the alphabet of nature, and the prime book of divine 
works, which if they did not, they might perchance by de- 
grees and leisure, after the knowledge of simple letters and 
spelling of syllables, come at last to read perfectly the text 
and volume of the creation. But they contrarywise by con- 
tinual meditation and agitation of wit, urge and as it were 
invocate their own spirits to divine, and give oracles unto 
them, whereby they are deservedly and pleasingly deluded. 
Men oftentimes imbue and infect their meditations and doc- 
trines, with the infusions of some opinions and conceptions of 
their own which they have most admired, or some science to 
which they have most applied themselves, giving all things a 
dye and tincture, though very deceivable from these favorite 
studies.” 

“For why should we erect unto ourselves some few authors 
to stand like the pillars of Hercules, beyond which there 
should be no discovery of knowledge, or seeing that ‘there is 
no end of their making books, and that much reading is a 
weariness to the flesh , 7 without profiting the mind, unless it 
be of such ‘books as are of the right kind , 7 that as the serpent 
of Moses may devour the serpents of impostors, why sur- 
charge ourselves with too much reading, too many books, or 
look to mere opinions for ‘the truths of nature which doat 
upon their understanding with a direct beam of light, accord- 
ing to its own laws and not the law of words or the opinions 
of man . 7 

“The substance of matter is better than the beauty of 
words, the vanity of matter is more odious than*the vanity of 
words; even good and sound knowledge, often putrifies and 
dissolves into subtle idle questions, which are of no solid use; 
and too much learning may subject us to the mockery of the 
old woman in YEsop, ‘who conceited that by doubling her 
measure of barley, her hen would daily lay her two eggs. But 
the hen grew fit and laid none . 7 So of the Schoolmen ‘who 
were ignorant of the history either of nature or of time, spun 
out of no great quantity of matter, but with infinite agitation 
of wit and fancy, laborious webs of degenerate learning, 
working upon itself as the spider works his web which is 
endless, and brought forth cobwebs of learning, admirable 
indeed for fineness of thread and work, but of no substance 
or profit . 7 


13 


But when the wit and mind of man, if it work upon matter 
by contemplating nature and the works of God, works accord- 
ing to the stuff, and is limited thereby; avoiding “a heap and 
mass of words to give men countenance, that those who have 
the terms of art, might be thought to understand the arts 
themselves,” avoiding also the collections of the Schoolmen, 
“which are like a fripper’s or broker’s shop, that hath ends 
of every thing, but nothing of worth.” 

Do not give too ready credence to, or pin your faith upon 
the sleeves of those, who affect to throw a veil of mystery 
over the sources of knowledge, or the springs of science; 
there are as to some branches, men who assume to give the 
rules and principles, on which alone you can find the key to 
unlock those mysteries which they may have created, or the 
thread to guide you through a labyrinth existing perhaps 
only in their fancy, in order to make themselves the pillars of 
the science. Such as those who profess to know the mystery 
of the science of government, political economy or national 
wealth; trust them not, if when you go back to their elements, 
you find their principles are not based on the grain of mus- 
tard seed, but rest on the conceit of some opinionative intel- 
lectualist. In the mustard seed, is the germ of truth, in the 
speculations of the philosopher, there is error. You can as 
well understand the nature of the first concordance of society 
in a family, in its domestic and social relations which lead to 
the government of a nation, or the properties of that seed 
whence springs its future wealth, goodness, and glory, as the 
most sublime of philosophers. Though they go to the ocean, 
take you the mustard seed; the smallest beginning will have 
the broadest end. 

The true road to knowledge consists in the inquiry of caus- 
es, and the production of effects; the one searches “the mines 
and caves where nature lies hid,” the other fashions it as it 
were upon the anvil; “art and human industry do not com- 
mand and rule, but serve and administer to its operations, and 
nothing caD so much conduce to drawing down from heaven, 
as it were, a whole shower of new and profitable inventions for 
the use of men,” as the intent solicitude to do or discover some- 
thing, which shall tend to supply the wants, or increase the 
comforts of the society wherein you move. If it is in a small 
town, know how to make it a greater one. So in states or na- 
tions; if you have but a grain to contribute, let it be of the true 
seed, that hath healthful properties of growth and increase. The 
practice of an useful art or science, or the invention or discovery 


14 


of a new one, should be a primary aim. You may invent by re- 
flection, experiment and deep study into the recesses of nature; 
but you may discover from the observation of matter, animate 
or inanimate, things which may effect the greatest changes. 
Watch the motions of a fish, you see the discovery of naviga- 
tion; its fins and tail taught man the use of cars to propel, 
and rudders to steer; you can’ trace the steam engine to the 
spout of a tea kettle, artillery to the flying up of a pot lid, and 
fire to the accidental striking of stone with iron. 

It is well said by the great disciple of nature, that in the 
medicinal use of dittany, “we are more beholden to a wild 
goat for chirurgery, or to a nightingale for the modulations of 
music , 77 and to say in a word, to chance or any thing else 
more than to logiqus. Neither is the form or method of in- 
vention much other, than what beasts are capable of, and 
often put in use. Who or what “taught the raven in a 
drought, to throw pebbles into a hollow tree where by chance 
she spied water, that the water might rise so as she might 
come to it? What taught the bee to sail through such a 
vast sea of air, to the flowers in the wilds, to find the way 
so far off to his hive again? Who taught the ant to bite every 
grain of corn that she buries in the hill, lest it should take 
root and grow, and so delude, her hope? 77 — Chance, accident, 
nature, instinct, 'providence — not philosophy. I trust there is 
no one among you to whom it need be said — “Go to the ant 
thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise, which having 
no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the sum- 
mer, and gathercth her food in the harvest . 77 

Thus moved, thus guided, you are sure to bo right at the 
first step, then go ahead, without, like Atalanta, losing the 
race by the allurement of a golden apple. In the choice of 
their occupation, young men are too apt to consider that there 
are grades in society, depending on the nature of the employ- 
ment of its different members; thus the learned, professions, 
as they are called, of Divinity, Law, and Physic, rank higher 
in public estimation, than the mechanic or useful arts, as ob- 
jects of pursuit. This is an opinion but too common both 
with the old and young. There is within us a latent, an almost 
indomitable spirit of false pride, that leads us to inquire into 
the stock from which our neighbors and their children have 
sprung, as we would into the breed of their horses, cattle, 
sheep or swine, professing to be republicans in grain, protest- 
ing against the existence of even a lurking remnant of tho 
pride of ancestry in our bosoms, it is yet there. We are too 


15 


apt to indulge its workings within, and are often obliged to 
suppress its stubborn ebullition from appearing without. Wc 
do not estimate the man, in proportion alone to the’height which 
he has reached by his own unaided exertions, but, by a most 
perverse standard of estimation, often place him below one 
who has not risen beyond the grade of his father, or has sunk 
below it. In awarding homage to the statesman, the divine, 
the lawyer, the physician, the political or judicial officers of 
the government, in preference to the mechanic, the tradesman 
or merchant, merely from the nature of their employment, 
we apply a standard which will stand the test of neither rea- 
son or public utility. The true scale by which to measure all 
of them, is by the works which follow their labors. The 
workman is known by his chips, the tree by its fruit; and as 
its effects are heathful to the soul, Or the body, as our rights 
are ably, honestly, and skilfully asserted or defended, good 
laws adopted, truly expounded, justly administered in their ap- 
plication, the one is entitled to precedence over another, in the 
same proportion as labors of the mind have added to the gen- 
eral stock of public good. So should the labors of the body 
be measured, and the mechanic be held to out-rank the states- 
men who administer the government of the people, if he has 
produced results more beneficial to their interests, and in spite 
of the perverted pride of our nature, the universal expression 
of public opinion, has assigned to the mechanic arts their 
just position in the grades of science, and to the inventors of 
useful mechanism, or improvements therein, the true rank to 
which they are entitled in the estimation of their country 
and their countrymen. 

As a nation, we give the highest praise to those who have 
achieved the greatest benefits; in the award of its highest of- 
fices and honors, we never look to the pedigree of the candi- 
date, incumbent, or recipient; and the time is not distant, 
when no one will inquire who the public benefactor once was, 
from whom he descended, what was his own, or the calling 
of his father, but as individuals, all will unite in giving honor 
to whom honor is due, with no other respect to grade or fan- 
cied rank in society, than is the merited meed of their works. 

In the ancient nations of the heathen world, it was the high- 
est degree of honor to attain an apotheosis, or be translated 
among the gods; especially when itwas given, not 6fc by a formal 
decree or act of estate, (as was used among the the Roman 
emperors, ) but freely by the assent of men and inward belief, of 
which high honor there was a certain degree and middle term. 


16 

For there were reckoned above human honors, honors hero-' 
ical and divine, in the distribution whereof antiquity observed 
this order: Founders of States, lawgivers, extirpators of ty- 
rants, fathers of their country , and other eminent persons in 
civil merit, were honored with the title of worthies only, or 
demigods; on the other side, such as were the authors and 
inventors of new arts, and such as endowed man’s life with 
new commodities and accessions, were ever consecrated among 
the greater or entire gods,” which Lord Bacon says was done 
justly, and upon sound judgment. “For the - merits of the 
former are commonly confined within the circle of an age or 
nation, and are not unlike seasonable and favoring showers, 
which, though they be profitable and desirable, yet save but 
for that season only wherein they fall, or for a latitude of 
ground which they water; but the benefits of the latter, like 
the influence of the sun and the heavenly bodies, are fortimo 
permanent, for place universal; those again are commonly 
mixed with strife and perturbation, but these have the true 
character of divine presence, and come with a gentle breath ■, 
without noise or agitation.” 

The most ancient nations paid no regard to the manner of 
invention or discovery in the arts. Hence they who discourse 
of the first inventors of things, and the original of the sci- 
ences, have celebrated rather chance than art, and have- 
brought in beasts, birds, fishes, and serpents, rather than 
men, as the first doctors of sciences. So that it was no mar - 
vaille , (the manner of antiquity being to consecrate the in- 
ventors of profitable things,) that the Egyptians, to whom 
many arts owe their first beginnings, had their temples full 
of the idols of beasts, but almost empty of the idols of men. 

If then the wisest nations of antiquity have deified inven- 
tors, whether man or beast, or the invention was the effect of 
chance or art, while the founders of States were only half 
gods and half men, we cannot err by considering them as on 
a level. Much as we may respect the fathers of our country, 
who carried it through the perils of the revolution, and the 
confusion which followed, till they placed it on the rock on 
which it now rests, it is not to them alone that vve are to 
ascribe our perfect greatness. In our progress from depend- 
ent colonies to independent states, first connected by the feeble 
ties of the confederation, and since united by the more perfect 
union under the constitution; more public benefits have flowed 
upon the country by inventions and discoveries in the mechan- 
ic arts and practical sciences, than the whole legislation of 


IT 


Congress unconnected with them, has produced. If you think 
this a bold assertion, look to the south and southwest sections 
of the country for the effects of the invention of the cotton 
gin, in the increased population, wealth and resources of an 
immense territory, and then ask, what would have been its 
condition now, if that invention had not been made. Extend 
your vision over and across the Atlantic, to the commercial 
cities of the old world, and cotton fills your eye as the great 
staple article of commerce: go to the work-shops of Europe 
and these states, you find cotton the material for the manufac- 
ture of almost countless millions of clothing, and then ask 
yourselves, does that man live who would not deem a life 
well spent, who had made himself worthy of being placed on 
a level with Eli Whitney. Look, too, to the inventions of 
Oliver Evans and Robert Fulton, and to the mighty conse- 
quences which these inventions have produced in commerce 
and intercourse foreign and domestic, and are producing in 
naval warfare, is there one of you who would not feel that the 
measure of your ambition was full to overflowing, and your 
highest aspirations for fame most abundantly gratified, if you 
should live to see the day when your name would be united 
with them, as a public benefactor by your mechanical inven- 
tions. And even if public opinion should award to you only 
posthumous justice, after a life of persecuting litigation, as 
was the fate of those great men, you will leave to your chil- 
dren a brighter and more enduring inheritance than fleeting 
wealth or recorded honors, for you will have deserved well of 
your country, by earning that for which all aspire, public 
praise. 

But let not the fate of these eminent mechanics, deter you 
from the pursuit of those arts to which your inclinations lead 
you; though impostors may have their day, and public justice 
is awarded slowly to inventors, yet time never fails to bring 
it about, when the novelty of the invention is acknowledged, 
and the utility of its application tested by experience; and 
when public honors are once bestowed upon the mechanic, 
they are never lost Unlike the statesmen, or the high politi- 
cal officers of the government, who find “the stairs to honor 
steep, the standing slippery, the regress a downfall,” the me- 
chanic needs no bulwark in patronage, his standing is im- 
pregnable, there is no regress from the position he occupies, 
no downfall to his honors, no “farewell to his greatness,” 
which is as durable as his inventions, there is no limit to the 
space to which his name is known in his works, his honors 
are “as to time, permanent, as to place, universal " 


18 


Alexander was envious of the great good fortune of Achil- 
les in this, that he had so good a trumpet of his actions and 
prowess, in the verses of Homer; but the cotton gin in its every 
motion, the paddle wheels of every steam boat, and every puff 
from a locomotive engine, will through all time, trumpet forth 
and perpetuate the memory of Whitney, Evans, and Fulton, 
without the aid of the least, still less the greatest of poets. 
Their works are their own best trumpeters, their fame will 
be immortal as the benefits they have conferred on mankind, 
and proclaimed in every land by every tongue, where the use- 
ful arts are cherished. 

It has been most truly said, that he is a public benefactor 
who causes two blades of grass to grow, where one grew be- 
fore, what then is that mechanic who has imparted to his 
country benefits of incalculable magnitude in increased pro- 
duction at diminished expense, with facilities of transportation 
and intercommunication between states and nations by achiev- 
ing a conquest over time and space, the current of the might- 
iest rivers, and the storms of the ocean. 

It will be too tedious to refer to the numerous inventors, 
who have largely contributed to the wealth and prosperity of 
the country, by inventions worthy of all praise; it would be 
invidious to name some and omit others of equal merit, espe- 
cially the living, but there are two other sons of Pennsylvania, 
who have achieved a greater conquest over a more powerful, 
a more stubborn, more unyielding adversary, than this coun- 
try ever encountered on the land or the water. The inflated, 
boastful pride of Europe, the arrogantly assumed, asserted 
superiority over us, in the progress of the useful arts and 
sciences, their relative perfection and useful application in 
the two countries, has been humbled before the locomotive 
engines of William Norris and Matthias W. Baldwin. — 
They traverse the rail roads of Austria, and of even haugh- 
ty England, unrivalled in construction, in speed, and power, 
by the best productions of its most skilful artizans. How 
changed is her policy since her prime minister declared, 
that not a horse-shoe or a hob-nail should be made in their 
colonies, since her iron-masters and iron-mongers complained 
to Parliament, “That the inhabitants of New England make 
a great deal of bar iron, manufacture it into axes, nails, and 
sundry other species, and do now not only supply themselves 
with great quantities of nails and iron ware, but export great 
quantities to many other of His Majesty’s plantations, to the 
great decay and prejudice of the iron trade of this kingdom,” 


19 


and Parliament by a solemn act, declared rolling and slitting 
mills, plating forges to work with a tilt hammer, and furnaces 
for making steel, “to be a common nuisance to be abated by 
the Governor within thirty days after information given.” 

And can it be, that an American Engine, which in 1750 
would have been a common nuisance to the mother country, 
though located in the colonies, should be imported from Penn- 
sylvania in 1840, to supersede the boasted productions of 
English art, skill and genius, on English ground'? It is true, 
though strange to those who have been inattentive observers 
of the rapid progression of our artisans, in outstripping those 
of Europe in those inventions and improvements which exalt 
a nation by making the people prosperous and happy. It has 
long been foreseen by those who have looked to the perfection 
of our manufactures, that they would become articles of export 
to that country, whence they were but a few years since im- 
ported, whenever its policy would permit; it may be safely 
asserted, that no other reason than policy, prevents the impor- 
tation of articles of our manufactures, other than locomotive 
engines, nor can it be doubted that the time is near, when 
every rail road in Europe, will be supplied with engines of 
American manufacture, or those patterned from them. And 
does not the present reality, combined with the future pros- 
pect, excite a truly national pride, at this splendid triumph 
over the settled prejudice, the inveterate unbending policy, 
and haughty spirit of the greatest nation of the old world; is 
there one in this assembly who does not wish that himself or 
his son was the conqueror in this trial of genius and skill, or 
who would not rather enjoy the honor of being a more em- 
inent mechanic than any in Europe, than being the most 
distinguished warrior or statesman of the day 1 ? 

It is not in the construction of Engines alone, that our 
mechanics are triumphant. The late Sultan of Turkey sought 
a master ship carpenter, not among the subjects of the favor- 
ed mistress of the sea, or any of her European competitors, 
or aspirants to its dominion; he sent here for the best work- 
man of his age, to build the ship which was to bear his name. 
The Emperor of Austria, following and profiting by his ex- 
ample, overlooked all the artisans of Europe, by selecting one 
of our own; the capitalists of England sent next, the Autocrat 
of Russia has made his requisition, and other crowned heads 
may ere this, have accorded homage to American mechanics. 
Who is there who would not feel honored in representing this 
nation at the court of the Sultan or an Emperor, but who was 


20 


the most honored by the one, when the Mahmouda was launch- 
ed, or by the other, when the engine moved? — the American 
mechanic by whom the honor was earned, or the American 
minister on whom it was reflected? — and who is there among 
you, that would not have been, if you could, the Eckford at 
the one court, or the Norris at the other? They strove for 
empire in the world of their respective arts, success attended 
their efforts; one did not long survive his triumph, the other 
has returned to enjoy his — to impart its benefit to his country, 
and teach his countrymen the most useful of all practical les- 
sons: that in their mechanical skill, industry, and inventive 
genius, there consists the most solid foundation for individual, 
as well as national greatness. With such men for examples 
to imitate, for guides to follow, no one should feel debased by 
such occupations as made them the benefactors of the old and 
new world. No member of a learned profession, no states- 
man or jurist, is put in requisition for employment in Europe; 
their works are seldom if ever sought for instruction, or adopt- 
ed as improvements in their respective branches of knowledge, 
for few, very few are admitted by Europeans to have added 
to the common stock, though here their merit is acknowledged. 
You need, however, not be mechanics in order to become in- 
ventors; though inventions are, if not more, as often the ef- 
fect of chance, accident or instinct, as the result of scientific 
investigation, or deep study to find out something new and 
useful, yet it is well for all to be on the look out, for invent- 
ing some improvement on what is known, for making some 
new development or application of old principles for discover- 
ing some qualities in matter, or some effects from its motion. 
No one knows till he tries, what may be the result of the 
close observation of nature, her works, and mode of working, 
of “experiment upon experiment, from experiment to axioms,” 
from axioms again to new experiments. You may fail in 
finding the thing sought, yet usefully develope something else, 
as the alchymists, who could not turn other metals into gold, 
“have brought to light a great number of fruitful experiments; 
as well for the disclosure of nature, as the use of man’s life.” 
It cannot be said “that Prometheus applied his contemplation 
on set purpose to the invention of fire, or that when he first 
struck the flint he expected sparks;” nor that the use of artil- 
lery was the object of the experiment that led to it, or that it 
would have been known, “if the pot lid of that chemic monk 
(Roger Bacon) had not, by flying open, and being tost up in 
the air, instructed him,” but that both fell upon the experi- 


ment by chance. Others again become inventors by a most 
intent solicitude about some one thing, and a watchfulness to 
discover it — of which a striking instance is said to have late- 
ly occurred in Pittsburgh. It was a desideratum in casting 
chilled rollers, that the metal in entering the mould should 
have a rotary motion in order to throw the impurities to the 
centre. A young man hired in a foundry was intent upon the 
discovery, and attained it, by noticing the flowing of water 
from a hydrant into a bucket, so as to strike the side at an 
angle to its axis. Another instance has occurred here, in the 
invention of the art of making paper from straw, by a worthy 
neighbor, who observing that the straw at the bottom of a tub 
of leached ashes, resembled rags or the stock for making 
paper, made it convertible into paper by extracting the acid 
from the straw. 

These and other countless inventions or discoveries, have 
been too lightly accounted; though they are but as mustard 
seed, thej' - have produced much; though they may be but slen- 
der twigs, or the smallest sticks which compose the bundle of 
faggots of the old man referred to in a fable of JEsop, their 
united effect when bound together, has mainly caused and 
will perpetuate the greatness of our common country, and its 
prosperous growth from small beginnings. 

I cannot better close this address, than by advising you, 
and each of you, to so act your allotted parts in life, that you 
will become one of such sticks, so that by being accounted 
parts of the great bundle which constitutes the strength of the 
nation, you will inscribe your names on the roll of public 
benefactors. 

May prosperity attend you. 








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